Oscar Got It Wrong: Best Actor 1975

The Contenders:

Al Pacino: Dog Day Afternoon
James Whitmore: Give ‘em Hell, Harry!
Maximilian Schell: Man in the Glass Booth
Jack Nicholson: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (winner)
Walter Matthau: The Sunshine Boys

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1975

The Contenders:

Amarcord
And Now My Love
Dog Day Afternoon (winner)
Lies My Father Told Me
Shampoo

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1975

The Contenders:

Federico Fellini: Amarcord
Stanley Kubrick: Barry Lyndon
Sidney Lumet: Dog Day Afternoon
Robert Altman: Nashville
Milos Forman: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1975

The Contenders:
Barry Lyndon
Dog Day Afternoon
Jaws
Nashville
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (winner)

Attica! Attica!

Film: Dog Day Afternoon
Format: DVD from personal collection on rockin’ flatscreen.

If you’re a movie geek, you know all about John Cazale. Cazale, who did at 42, was in a grand total of five films in his short career. As it happens, each of those five films was nominated for Best Picture. This is a unique record in film history—someone who was an actor in this number of films being connected exclusively with great films. One of those films is Dog Day Afternoon, a film I had heard of and knew something about, but had never actually seen until tonight.

This is the story of a bank robbery that goes very wrong very quickly. Three men walk into a bank, inexpertly draw guns, and raid the vault. One, Stevie (Gary Springer) immediately gets cold feet and runs off leaving the other two to complete the job. The one nominally in charge is Sonny (Al Pacino), who is an interesting case. He seems to only marginally know what he is doing. His accomplice, Sal (the aforementioned John Cazale), is the real gunman. Sonny and Sal manage to keep the bank from triggering an alarm, but have also entered the bank on the worst day possible for a robbery—the vault has just been emptied and there is only $1,100.